The invention relates to mobile telecommunications systems. In particular, aspects of the invention relate to methods and systems for automatically and/or selectively initiating communications among mobile users in a telecommunications system that has the ability to determine a geographic location of mobile users.
Mobile telecommunication units (MUs) such as cell phones and other related devices have become a pervasive part of our culture. Throughout the several years that MUs have been in widespread use, they have been treated largely as a movable version of a standard telephone. In particular, a main objective of current systems has been to hide the fact that the user of the MU is in fact mobile, by providing a standard telephone number for reaching the MU regardless of location. Thus, MUs are typically used in a manner so as to conceal the location of the mobile user to make it appear to the outside world that the unit is a traditional stationary unit (SU). Similarly, when telecommunication system users (users) place phone calls using MUs, they dial traditional telephone numbers as if they were in their home location, making call placement appear to users of MUs as if they were in their home cities, regardless of their actual location.
Of course the approximate location of an MU is always known to the telecommunication infrastructure in the form of which cell base station the MU is communicating with (e.g., as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,561 (Alanara et al.)). A prime motivation for being able to access such information is to determine the location of MU users who place calls to Emergency-911 call centers or are otherwise in distress. In order to improve the effectiveness of Emergency-911 services in particular, more accurate position information is being made available via the telecommunication infrastructure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,045 (Castelloe et al.) teaches the use of combining Global Positioning System (GPS) information with a telecommunication infrastructure to accurately determine the position of an MU, whereas U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,434 (Seraj) teaches the use of low powered beacons scattered throughout MU usage areas. But, regardless of the technology used, the end result is that telecommunication systems are rapidly being provided with an ability to accurately determine the geographic location of an individual MU.
In conventional telecommunication systems, a telephone call is initiated by having one user dial a number to establish a connection with another user. Recent technology trends have evolved the notion of establishing a connection to become more sophisticated using, for example, a monitor of a stock price to send a paging message when there is a price change. However, these other ways of establishing connections do not take into account the location of the person either establishing the connection or the location of the person with whom the connection is being established.
These other ways of establishing connections also do not take into account the inter-relationships of people. For example, an acquaintance graph may be used to illustrate social connections between individuals. An example of a portion of an acquaintance graph is shown in FIG. 13. Nodes on the graph represent individuals and arcs indicate that the individuals are acquaintances, or that they have met one another.
The number of degrees of separation, or xe2x80x9chopsxe2x80x9d on a social acquaintance graph between two individuals, generally tends to be a small number. Put another way, if the network of friends and acquaintances of every person were drawn out into a single large acquaintance graph as a set of nodes (people) and arcs (personal relationships), it would not take very many arc traversals through the network to get from any one individual to another. This concept is often attributed to Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, in the form of the statement that there are only six degrees of separation between any two people. This notion was being exploited by the web site www.sixdegrees.com, before its demise on Dec. 31, 2000.
While the notion of degrees of separation freedom is frequently cast in the form of determining a minimum-hop path via an acquaintance graph for two predetermined people, it also has relevance in that for any randomly selected group of people it would seem likely that there are acquaintance graph paths shorter than length six present (i.e., while six hops tends to connect any two people, many people can be connected in fewer hops). In particular, if the group is selected based on common characteristics, interests, or geographic location, there may be short acquaintance graph paths that pass through shared clubs, alumni organizations, civic groups, or the like. However, acquaintance graphs are not presently being used to initiate connections between mobile users.
In a first aspect of the invention, there is a method for selectively connecting telecommunications users. The method includes the steps of receiving from an initiating telecommunications unit (TU), a user input indicating that a group connection is to be initiated; determining the distance from the initiating TU to each TU associated with each group member; and creating a telecommunications connection between the initiating TU and at least one group member TUs within a predetermined distance of the initiating TU.
In a second aspect of the invention, there is a system for selectively connecting telecommunications users. The system includes a processor and memory for storing computer readable instructions. When the computer readable instructions are executed by the processor, they cause the system to perform a set of steps, including the steps of receiving from an initiating telecommunications unit (TU), a control message indicating that a group connection is to be initiated; determining the distance from the initiating TU to each TU associated with each group member in a group corresponding to the group connection; and creating a telecommunications connection between the initiating TU and at least one group member TUs within a predetermined distance of the initiating TU.
In a third aspect of the invention, there is a computer readable medium for storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to perform a set of steps. The set of steps includes the steps of receiving from an initiating telecommunications unit (TU), a control message indicating that a group connection is to be initiated; determining the distance from the initiating TU to each TU associated with each group member; and creating a telecommunications connection between the initiating TU and at least one group member TUs within a predetermined distance of the initiating TU.
In some embodiments, the number of group member TUs is every group member TU within the predetermined distance of the initiating TU.
In some embodiments, a user input indicates a specific group for which the group connection is to be initiated.
In some embodiments, when more than a predetermined number of group member TUs are within the predetermined distance to the initiating TU, the predetermined number of group member TUs that are closest to the initiating TU are selected.
In some embodiments, when less than a predetermined number of group member TUs are within the predetermined distance, the predetermined distance is iteratively enlarged until the predetermined number of group member TUs are within the enlarged predetermined distance to the initiating TU.
In some embodiments, when there are more than a predetermined number of group member TUs within the predetermined distance from the initiating TU, the predetermined number of group member TUs are selected such that the distance spread of all TUs in the connection is minimized.
In some embodiments, each TU is a mobile telecommunications unit.